On Monday, August 3 Tubefilter is proudly presenting ITVFest Web Television Day, which features screenings of the Official Web Series Selections from the ITVFest, along with panels, lectures and discussions focusing on the web television industry, including speakers from Next New Networks, MyDamnChannel, KoldCast TV, Fox Television Studios, CBS Interactive, Atom, and FreMantle Media.

Web TV Day is capped off with the official Web TV Day After Party sponsored by Blip.tv and Stella Artois at Hollywood Hotspot Libertine. In addition to free beer from Stella Artois and networking with the winners and distribution executives from the ITVFest, the party will feature a special presentation from Dina Kaplan, Co-founder and COO of Blip.tv, the world’s largest distributor of shows made for the web.

Here’s your complete guide to Web TV Day. Screenings and panels will take place at Laemmle’s Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA 90046.

Independent Television Festival Web TV Day Presented by Tubefilter – Monday, August 3, 2009

12:00 PM - ”Let’s Go Digital” with Brandon Martinez, Digital Agent, Abrams Artists

This intimate coffee talk will allow all particpants the opportunity to ask the questions of this digital agent they always wanted to ask—like what is a digital agent, or how do digital producers really make money?

1:00 PM – “Developing For The Web” sponsored by Unicorn Media

Different mediums require different processes. The process for developing for the web takes into account a variety of different challenges that don’t exist in the television world. Executives from the premier web studios will be on hand to answer questions about how you can sell your project to a studio and start a relationship early. Opportunities are prevalent and people looking to have their web projects funded and distributed by a studio must attend this panel.

• Ilsa Berg, Fox Television Studios
• Ian Friedman, Atom
• Warren Chao, MyDamnChannel
• Next New Networks
• David Samuels, KoldCast TV
• Jigar Thakarar, CBS Interactive
• Marc Hustvedt, Tubefilter

2:00 PM – Web Series Screening

The Lone Wolf - This Channel 101 comedy series from Johnny Borda follows a Hollywood stuntman who loses his memory when the perfect stunt goes wrong and who must embark on a tireless quest through the great Los Angeles area in search for his own identity. The series stars Matt Peters, Bennie Arthur, and Chad Fogland, is directed by Oren Kaplan.

The Clean-Up Crew - This USC film school graduate thesis from writers Tim Dragga & Scott Rickles follows the misfit crew at Frank’s Crime Scene Steam-N-Clean and the hilarious and gruesome world of crime scene cleaning, where “death means dollars.” The series stars Dale Midkiff, Richard Riehle, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Tuione, Chrissy Anderson, Travis Willingham, and Jessica McClendon, and is produced by Tim Kolesk and Tarika Khan.

Imaginary Bitches - Andrew Miller created this inventive comedy starring Eden Riegel about a single woman who deals with the lonely reality that all her friends are busy with serious relationships by creating imaginary friends—who unfortunately turn out to be total bitches caught our eye a year ago as it emerged from the 100-day WGA Strike. The series also stars Elizabeth Hendrickson, Brooke Nevin, Connie Fletcher Staton, Jessalyn Gilsig, Greg Rikaart, Chandra West, Michael Traynor, James Kee, Aaron Staton, Brittany Ishibashi, Sam Page, Billy Aaron Brown, and Charlie Koznick, is written by Andrew Miller with Nichole Millard and Kathryn Price, and produced by Seth Adam Cohen and Judson Morgan.

3:30 PM – “Web TV or TV: Success Stories” sponsored by Tubemogul

It seems all the major studios are using the internet to incubate talent for other projects at the studios. And now we’re seeing the transition more and more. Quarterlife and In the Motherhood were just the start of this incredible opportunity and trend. At this panel we’ll hear from people who have made their Web TV show into a TV show and hear all about what the good and the bad about the transition may be.

• Lindsay Goffman, FreMantle, Secret Girlfriend
• Dan Levy, My Long Distance Relationship
• Benny and Rafi Fine
• David Burch, TubeMogul
• Dina Kaplan, Blip.tv

4:30 PM – Web Series Screening

Operation Midnight Climax - This stylized drama from producers Ramesh Thadani, Juan Reynoso, Zach Jordan and Glenn Sauber explores the CIA LSD experiments conducted in San Francisco brothels during the 1950s. The series stars Meredith Salenger, Todd Cahoon, Quinton Flynn and Stephanie Lemelin. Read our recent coverage for more details.

Psycho Bob - The AV Club’s Andrew Cochrane has developed an experimental “Sunday comic strip” storytelling technique for this series about the adventures of a psychopath named Bob. The series stars Sean Bury, Marie Lively, Nick Clark, Jesse Jones, Nick Armstrong, Evan Gaustad, Douglas Sarine, Mary Pat Farrell, James Applebury, Mark Rogers, Matt Wyatt, Phil King, Kevin Ford, Jillian Batherson, and is produced by Craig Bauer.

OzGirl – We’ve had our eye on now nineteen year-old Aussie director Nicholas Carlton since the debut of Austrailia’s first lonelygirl-esque social web show back in November. The series stars Sophie Tilson, Shanrah Wakefield and Richard Askin and is executive produced by Darryl Carlton. Catch our recent coverage about OzGirl’s DVD launch.

6:15 PM – Web Series Screening

Urban Wolf - This mystery web series from Paris-based director Laurent Touil Tartour follows an American tourist in Paris who is pursued and terrorized by a malevolent security camera operator. The series stars Vincent Sze and is executive produced by production company Napoléon Première.

2012 - Los Angeles-based producers Jessica Bertulis, Kamali Minter and Helen Truong present this interactive viral and webisode series abouta techno-geek who embarks on a quest to change the future when he intercepts a series of internet transmissions from the future warning the impending apocalypse. The series stars Kevin Held, Jared Asato, Brit Marling, Neal Xingu Rodl, and Ron C. Patric.

Johnny B. Homeless - New York-based producer-actor Al Thompson presents the story of a professional couch surfer (in fact not homeless but rather just constantly stays away from home to give his girlfriend some space) who has the uncanny ability to help those he comes in contact with and whose couch he crashes on. The series, produced by Kahler R. Hart, Jennifer Westin, and Geoffrey Quan, also stars Kenan Thompson and Kevin Christy, is written by Sherman Payne and Christian Magalhaes and directed by Greg Stees and David Spates.

7:45 PM – Special Screening of “Street Kred”

Justin Kredible—like a magician, only cooler—stars in this magical comedy show that takes you inside the hotspots of magic and leaves you totally mystified.

8:00 PM ITVFest Web TV Day After Party

Libertine
8210 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90046

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Cold. Hard. Cash. We love it when companies are willing to put their money where their mouths are.

Massachusetts-based web studio OurTVSpace is offering up $10,000 to a writer (or writing team) to develop a full 20-episode original web series as part of their New Media Fellow program. Entries for the program are being accepted through August 15th.

I spoke to OurTVSpace founder Doug Kirkpatrick from his office in Sturbridge, MA, who said he created the program as a way to bring top writing talent to the production team to develop their next web series.

“We’re very much about sharing and collaborating with the artists,” said Kirkpatrick about the spirit of the program. He runs essentially a collaborative production studio for web video content where creative types from around New England drop in to support each others’ projects. It runs two very active social networks for local filmmakers, OurFilmSpace.com and OurTVSpace.com, which together boast over 2000 members.

The studio released its first original web series last fall, a teen drama-thriller called Oldbury Hill. The series had over 100 people from around the area working on it in some capacity, Kirkpatrick told me. “It shows how passionate people are over here – like a mom and daughter coming down from Maine,” he added.

This spring the company announced it had signed a deal with fellow Massachusetts-based web video company PermissionTV, who’s player powered the series Quarterlife,  to license the technology to build its new digital network.

For the New Media Fellow program, they are looking for a scripted project of any genre that will be selected by a group of industry peers for development. The writer doesn’t need to relocate to Massachusetts, he assured me, but would be flown out for a series of meetings at the studio beginning in September.

The program is a work-for-hire, I’m told, though the deal structure is such that the writer will have a percentage of cross-platform and ancillary rights to the property. While not officially WGA signatories, Kirkpatrick said they are open to working with WGA writers and would use agreements that were acceptable with the union.

“What excites me is working together creatively with very talented people and the immediate distribution aspect of web TV, the digital convergence and the economic opportunities it presents them,” said Kirkpatrick.

The bullish outlook on the space is refreshing, particularly in a shaky economic climate. The studio itself is beefing up, adding a number of new content verticals to its slate, including foodie-centric, FoodPerfect.tv and history buff OldStory.tv.

Disclosure Note: I am on the Selection Committee for the New Media Fellow program, but I am in no other way affiliated with OurTVSpace.com.

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Oldbury Hill

The premise of this thriller from OurTVSpace and creator Doug Kirkpatrick is like 90210 in reverse—a high school senior moves from Beverly Hills to a small sleepy town in Massachusetts (fictional Oldbury Hill) and tries to fit in to her new life and new school all while trying to figure out a “centuries old dark secret that threatens to change the world.” There’s a pretty active fan site where cast, crew and fans are refreshingly chatty about what’s going on in the series. Episode 4 was just released yesterday.

The McCaingels

Ok, so he lost the election and a web series about John McCain probably won’t tickle the fancy of many viewers any more, but this one was too good to not take another look. The McCaingels put out three delicious episodes this summer and fall, in what is Charlie’s Angels meets eager young Republican campaign staffers. We’ll be waiting for more from creator Mike Addis, who gave us “the sexiest Neo-Cons you will ever meet.”

The Speed Creeper

From newcomer comedy site Manic Attack and creator Tommy Walsh comes a series we have been longing for ever since mustached middle-aged men paraded up and down our street in the wee hours of the morning. The Speed Creeper debuted October 31st, bringing the dedication of fictional NJ man Alan Benderhoven and his dream of becoming the world’s fastest speed walker. As he puts it, “Breaking Away could be one of my favorite films. It just doesn’t get any better than watching a bunch of underdogs turn on that determination trigger, and go for it.” New episodes come out every other week through March, so make sure you keep track on our Web TV schedule.

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